Artificial Intelligence is the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages. This is the definition of AI in the Oxford English Dictionary. Interesting right?! The statistical data showing rapid growth in the funding, startups and job listings related to Artificial Intelligence in the past few years validates it. AI has received a mixed reaction from people. Some believe that development of AI technology will result in loss of jobs and economic displacement of workers. The result of machines taking over will be that humans would have to reinvent the work they do for themselves and their families. Some believe that AI will ultimately result in the assistance of humans by taking jobs like babysitters, pharmacists and surgeons reducing the error rate. Hence ambiguity prevails. Music industry is one sphere which has ben affected by the advent of Artificial Intelligence. It is finding its way into the music industry in new ways. Music Making AI software has come a long way in the past few years. It can be used to generate chord progressions, tweak pre-existing ones, create drum loops and melodies. But one thing AI is awesome at is analyzing and compiling large amounts of data. Basically, you feed in a large amount of source material which can be rock, pop, funk or classical music, AI doesn’t discriminate. It learns from the source data and picks on the chords, length, tempo, how notes relate to each other and produces original, new music. The source data for any instrument won’t involve loops but it will consist of everything that instrument can do. So, pre-recorded notes, scales and chords must be recorded and fed into the algorithm.
AIVA (Artificial Intelligence Virtual Artist) is an electronic composer recognized by the SACEM(Société des auteurs, compositeurs et éditeurs de musique).It specializes in classical music composition .It studied works of classical musicians like Bach, Beethoven, Mozart etc. and released two albums ‘Genesis’ and ‘Among the stars’ in 2016 and 2018 respectively. The algorithm AIVA is based on deep learning and reinforcement learning architectures. ‘MorpheuS’ is another AI research project by Dorien Herremans and Elaine Chew at Queen Mary University of London. The optimization approach used by the AI allows for the integration of a pattern detection technique in order to enforce long term structure and recurring themes in the generated music. Pieces composed by ‘MorpheuS’ have been performed at concerts in both Stanford and London. Musical choice of humans is as diverse as they themselves. It has been studied that human response to music is specific to an individual and is conditioned with time through previous experiences. Hence one person’s jam can be jarring for another. Vivid moods of music can be achieved with different techniques for example, Sad music is accentuated by using minor chords in major scales. Happy songs utilize the Lydian scale and so on. This can be exploited by AI to create personalized music for an individual. One can say, “A soundtrack to your life”. The thought of which sounds alluring. Who wouldn’t want a song with all the admirable qualities and trademark sounds of their favorite artist? AI can bring this to reality without neglecting the minute subtleties. Music marketing has been influenced a lot by AI. Artificial intelligence is being used for personalized marketing to the consumer. Spotify employs such deep learning algorithms to generate playlists like the ‘discover weekly’ tailored to the listener .The talent scouting department of record labels also known as A&R(Artists and Repertoire) employs AI to find the few ‘gems’ of artists from a large pool of contenders. Since technology has made it easy to upload songs AI makes it simple to select potential booming artists. Spotify alone has over 70 lakh new song uploads every year. AI might have many uses, but should it take over the music composition department? The answer is ambiguous. Though full on music creation by AI is almost a decade away. If it does happen, an AI being used by one person eventually will become identical to that person. And if AI’s become more intelligent and can be more creative than the artist itself, the artist becomes redundant. He has been replaced by the AI. The effect of it on the human mind well, not so good. This can be explained using a calculator as an analogy. Before the invention of calculators, one had to manually calculate large arithmetic operations, this kept the mind sharp, the increase in use of calculators reduced the brain’s ability to perform calculations, not by much but not negligible either. Similarly, even though computers are increasing our efficiency, we need to maintain or better expand the sharpness of minds. If not done, this will bring human growth to a standstill. If humans give up their critical thinking skills causing important mental muscles to atrophy, advancement in technology could represent a decline in human race’s ability to evolve and survive. This is also the case with AI in music. History is witness to us humans composing music as a form of art, to express ourselves, if a machine starts composing music for us this creativity will be lost and would do more harm than good. Anyway, there is nothing to fear, as in the end AI will always be a creation of humankind and the music created by it will always be connected to us. But it is necessary to understand that humans must work in tandem with AI. Technology thoughtfully managed by humans which doesn’t reduce human interactions with other people and nature can benefit humankind immensely. With proper checks and balances there is place for AI in the modern world. Artificial Intelligence in our day to day life and in music can be both a boon and a bane it is up to us to decide.
By Arastu Sharma
Chords & Co. 